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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28739952">Project 90: Scarlet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreadbareT/pseuds/ThreadbareT'>ThreadbareT</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90 (TV 1968), Thunderbirds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:29:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,222</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28739952</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreadbareT/pseuds/ThreadbareT</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Captains Scarlet, Black, and Magenta are assigned to the Zero-X as it investigates an alien signal from the far reaches of the solar system.<br/>Meanwhile, an older, wiser, Joe 90 is working for Spectrum, investigating a strange new cult...<br/>When Scarlet encounters an alien life form, Captain Black sparks a war that will soon be fought on Earth...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Project 90: Scarlet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>ONE<br/>
The Zero X slowed into orbit around Hades, the barren rock, barely the size of Pluto, lingering in the vast and endless darkness of the Badlands, the outer most fringe of the Solar System, at the very extent of the sun’s influence.<br/>
More than one hundred thousand astronomical units from the Sun, beyond the oort cloud, beyond the dust, debris, and comet fragments, at the very cusp of empty void, the light years, and unimaginable miles, to the next star.<br/>
Colonel James Richards considered the alabaster globe, that hung against the darkness, running a hand through the close cropped spikes over his gaunt, weathered, face “And there it is.”<br/>
Major Jeff Tracy nodded, setting his controls to stabilise the shields. “Didn’t we used to get a fanfare for this kind of thing?”<br/>
“Yeah…” Richards chuckled. “Maybe somebody will come back for the fanfare, under… different circumstances.” He tapped at his controls. “Want to go wake them up?”<br/>
Tracy hesitated.<br/>
“You okay?” Richards asked.<br/>
Tracy shuddered. “You ever feel like somebody walked on your grave?”<br/>
“No,” Richards said. “I feel like the temperature settings on the air conditioner keep fritzing. Go wake them up.”<br/>
“Sir,” Tracy acknowledged, dragging himself out of his chair, and striding across the bridge.<br/>
*<br/>
Conrad Turner blinked awake with a start, thrashing in the soup of cryogenic suspension liquid, clawing at the glass of his sleep-pod, tangled in the life support web that anchored him to the ceiling of the tube. He forced himself to stop, to remain still like a predator, watching the vague shadows and shapes beyond the skin of frost on the outside of the glass.<br/>
The lights were on in the other tubes. Those that had contained the crew of the Zero X were dark and empty. Two others were alight, those with Conrad’s fellow passengers, being slowly woken, nursed back to the world of the living.<br/>
Except one shadow, straight backed, square shouldered, already moving between the tubes, inspecting them with movements that were slow, measured, and precise.<br/>
Tracy. He was the second in command of the Zero X, and the flight engineer, athletic and self-assured, in his mid to late forties. Tracy was also by the far the most experienced member of the crew, by any measure you cared to name: years of service, missions flown, or misadventures.<br/>
Conrad uncurled his fists, and eased the tension from his shoulders. There were no enemies lurking in the nooks, crannies, or dark corners, no threats of ambush or deceit. Conrad unstrapped himself from his web of cables and pipes.<br/>
Already the shapeless blizzard of fragmented nightmares and memories were slipping away, fading into nothing. The ghosts of Conrad’s past once again falling back into their graves.<br/>
There was a gurgle of machinery, and the soup of suspension fluid drained from the casket.  Conrad slumped forwards, resting his head on the glass as he pulled the plastic mask from his nose and mouth, drawing deep breaths.<br/>
Cryo-suspension had never been the dreamless, timeless, blink of an eye that his training had promised. This had been worse though. The blizzard of memories had cut deeper than ever before, stabbing at his heart.<br/>
The dead had felt closer to Conrad than normal, calling for him to face them.<br/>
The casket opened with a hiss, the last vapours of coolant coiling into the air like serpents. Tracy reached in and dragged Conrad from the tube, helping him stand, shoving a bottle of water to Conrad’s lips.<br/>
“Here, sip this,” Tracy said, with the same professional smile a doctor or dentist might use to reassure a patient. “Slowly. Drink it too fast and it’ll make you sick.”<br/>
Conrad nodded. “I know. I’m fine. See to Paul.”<br/>
“Paul is it?” Tracy asked, helping a suave, matinee-idol handsome man from another of the tubes. “I thought we all had to call you by the finger paint code names.”<br/>
“You do,” Paul Metcalf grumbled, shaking his head. He sipped his own water, and looked up at Tracy, with a sudden, boyish smile. “Don’t mind Captain Black, he doesn’t come alive until his blood is at least thirty percent coffee.”<br/>
Conrad snorted. “And Captain Scarlet thinks he is funny.”<br/>
“Really?” Patrick Donaghue groaned, as he staggered from his tube, caught on his life support web. “We have to use the codenames? A few million miles from Earth, on the edge of space?”<br/>
“Yes,” Conrad said, simply.<br/>
“Why?” Donaghue asked, his New York accent straining at the word.<br/>
Conrad smiled. “Why don’t you want to, Captain Magenta?”<br/>
Magenta chuckled and shook his head. “Dammit. You get the cool codename, and suddenly Captain Black thinks he’s all that…”<br/>
Tracy glanced at them. “So… you boys want to come see where you’ve ended up?”<br/>
*<br/>
Anna Orson tapped at her console, running through the system checks on the Modular Exploration Vehicle. The wedge shaped drop ship thrummed to life as the engines and systems cycled. She looked over her shoulder to Hex Jonas, who was sitting on the far side of the cockpit.<br/>
Hex, the science officer and medic, was sleek and puckish, their hair clipped short, and dyed a lilac silver, a pair of thick rimmed glasses data-glasses resting on their button nose.<br/>
“What do you think of them?” Anna asked.<br/>
“Who?” Hex enquired without looking up from their work.<br/>
“Who?” Anna laughed. “Spectrum. The spies.”<br/>
Hex shrugged. “I like them fine. It’s the… sealed orders and secret missions I don’t like. It’s having a bunch of soldiers turn up, with more authority than God, throwing their weight around and order us out to the Badlands, where there a billion hazards waiting to scuttle us, smash us, or cook us from the inside out, and…they don’t even tell us what we are doing out here, and…”<br/>
“And?” A voice asked from the hatch. The rugged spy with the five-o-clock shadow and the scarlet uniform stepped into the hatch.<br/>
Hex swallowed.<br/>
“Speak freely,” Paul assured her, with a smile. “It’s okay.”<br/>
“And…” Hex said, their voice even and cold. “And… I don’t like that your secrecy trumps… everything. We earned our place on this ship. We know the dangers out here. When you don’t take the warnings seriously, it¬”<br/>
“We do,” Paul said, quickly. “We… do. Believe me. Spectrum asked for your crew, because you are the best. In the days ahead, we are likely to need your expertise. Nothing you tell us is dismissed out of hand, or taken lightly, and we don’t pretend we know better.” His voice lowered a little. “It’s just our orders are to reach our target, and establish the truth come what may.”<br/>
“But we can’t know what that truth is?” Anna asked.<br/>
Paul stroked his chin. “Not yet. Not until we know… what we are dealing with.” He gestured to the shuttered viewport. “May I?”<br/>
Anna slid into the co-pilot’s seat, and tapped at one of the controls.<br/>
The shutters rolled back, revealing the view ahead of the star ship.<br/>
Paul’s breath caught in a sigh.<br/>
Anna followed his gaze, out to the icy black sphere hanging in the void. A cold shiver ran down her spine. She couldn’t shift the uncanny prickle, at the back of her mind, that she was being watched. The feeling that the small planetoid was a vast, impossible eye.<br/>
“You really want to go down there?” Anna asked.<br/>
Paul shot her a look. “Want… is probably not the right word, but… yes.”<br/>
Hex shrank away.<br/>
Anna cleared her throat. “Yeah… no… that sounds a real bad idea.”<br/>
“Doesn’t it just,” Paul agreed, under his breath. “Doesn’t it just…”<br/>
The comm-link on Paul’s shoulder flashed.<br/>
“Scarlet,” he said, flicking the microphone down from his cap.<br/>
“Are they ready?” Conrad demanded over the link. “We are approaching our window.”<br/>
Paul looked to Hex.<br/>
They nodded, showing him their screen.<br/>
“Yeah,” Paul said. “The MEV is ready, and we’re a go.”<br/>
“SIG,” Conrad confirmed.<br/>
Anna took one last look at the planet, as she retreated out of the dropship.<br/>
 <br/>
TWO<br/>
The man sitting low in his car, sipping coffee, and watching the New Berlin town house, went by the name Joe Lysander, or at least for now. His name tended to change a lot. The black and white tabby curled up on the passenger seat, mewling softly, was called Mac, a name she did not entirely approve of.<br/>
The ghosts on the backseat were figments of Joe’s imagination, the lingering traces of The Programme, that he had been a subject to, for over a decade, from his ninth birthday.<br/>
It was a dank, blustery night. Rain stuttered and drummed on the roof of the car, and a mournful wind shook and rustled the avenue of birch and elms.<br/>
The leafy suburb was like everything else in New Berlin, spacious, airy, and modern in a crisp, clean, uniform kind of a way. Each of the houses was clad in timber and bronze-tinted glass, with a square of lawn, and a car or two on the drive.<br/>
It was the homely, respectable, kind of a street that took pride in nothing much ever happening.<br/>
Joe yawned tapping at his glasses to skip through the various vision-modes and sensors, adjusting for the dark and the rain.<br/>
His phone chirped in his pocket.<br/>
Mac looked up, and mewled softly.<br/>
“Give me a chance,” Joe muttered, defensively. He answered the call. “Nosey?”<br/>
“Her Ladyship prefers if people address me as Parker,” the voice on the other end of the line said, tartly. “You rang?”<br/>
Joe cleared his throat. “I just wanted to check Penny is okay.”<br/>
Al ‘Nosey’ Parker, took a moment. “Her ladyship is quite well, thank you. H’is there h’any reason why she should not be?”<br/>
“Probably not,” Joe admitted. “But…”<br/>
“What is it?” Parker demanded, his assumed accent dropping for a second, and his rough edges showing through.<br/>
“It’s almost certainly nothing,” Joe said. “It’s probably just the case I’m on, with some young girls going missing, and the same… dash of theatrics, getting me spooked, but…”<br/>
“Ah.” Parker paused. “Anything I need to be aware of?”<br/>
Six missing schoolgirls and students, scattered across the continent, all of them young, smart, and pretty, all of them targeted by a cult, with a few broad similarities to the weird stuff that had surrounded Penny’s own bag of troubles, a few years back.<br/>
“I’ll… get back to you on that.” Joe hesitated. “Don’t tell her I called. Don’t scare her.”<br/>
Parker laughed. “Oh, nothing much seems to do that.” He paused a beat. “I’ll make sure she’s safe.”<br/>
“Thank you.” Joe tapped off the call, letting out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. The ghosts at the back of his brain babbled and whispered.<br/>
“It’s probably nothing,” he muttered.<br/>
Lights flicked on in the house. The door opened. Maxwell Klein, a portly middle-aged middle manager, from a respectable firm, tiptoed down to the drive, carrying a sports bag, walking a dog.<br/>
“Thoughts?” Joe asked.<br/>
The shadowy Figments leant forwards. It was Edwina, the bleached haired, Australian spy, feline and demure in her late sixties, who spoke. He got in the habit of taking the dog for a walk, so his wife would be used to him going out. He parked on the street so the garage doors wouldn’t disturb his wife, and she would think the car was unmoved when he returned in the morning. He could be carrying dog toys in that bag, but ceremonial robes seem more likely.<br/>
“Yeah,” Joe muttered. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”<br/>
Klein hopped into his car and pulled away into traffic.<br/>
Joe followed at a discrete distance.<br/>
*<br/>
The warehouse was twenty minutes, and a whole world away, from the suburbs, out in the sprawl of factories and industrial buildings that radiated out from the side of the city, and stretched far over the horizon. Joe recognised the design, the fortified cube visible above ground was the tip of a deep, cylindrical iceberg that went many storeys down.<br/>
Joe held back at the gates, and watched Klein pulling into the building.<br/>
He tapped open a communications link on his glasses. “Astrid?”<br/>
The channel opened. Astrid Svenson grinned at him from her desk, with the office walls visible over her shoulder. As always, her blue Spectrum uniform was crisp, clean, and parade ground perfect. Her short bob of hair was swept to one side in a side parting. “Well, if it isn’t Captain Transparent. How goes the goose chase?”<br/>
“I found them,” Joe muttered.<br/>
“What?” Astrid sat up. “You did? Them? The Berlin Spectre is a Them?”<br/>
“I need some help,” Joe said, as he screwed the silencer onto his pistol. “I’m going to need access to the security feed on the warehouse at my location.”<br/>
“And you are asking permission?” Astrid chided, typing commands at a hurry. “You could probably hack it quicker than me.”<br/>
“Yeah, but I’m going to have to take it to local law enforcement, and it’s going to take some explaining, and…”<br/>
“I’m in.” Astrid frowned. “Looks like you have activity down on sub-level thirteen, down at the bottom of the building. They’ve blanked the cameras, and disabled the fire alarms, and… looks like there is malware set to wipe all the activity on the doors and alarms, cleaning up after them…”<br/>
Joe hurried across the lot. “Do you mind?”<br/>
Astrid scowled. “What are you doing?”<br/>
“Getting eyes on, confirmation,” Joe muttered. “Send back up to my location?”<br/>
The door buzzed open.<br/>
“Okay,” Astrid sighed. “Don’t do anything stupid.”<br/>
“Going to keep me company?” Joe asked, slipping inside and running for the elevator. He tapped the control, and started his descent.<br/>
“Local LEOs are responding in… six minutes,” Astrid confirmed. “You don’t want to wait?”<br/>
“Might not have time,” Joe whispered. “Hence the look-see.”<br/>
The doors hissed open and Joe crept out, into basement level thirteen.<br/>
The lights were dim, and flickering. Distant chanting echoed through the service corridor.<br/>
Joe pressed himself to the wall by the door to the storage floor and peeked in.<br/>
There were piles of clothes, neatly stacked with bags and shoes, spread out around the door. Klein was stacking his neatly too, having changed into his long purple robes, and a carved wooden mask, shaped like a fish head, with jet black eyes.<br/>
Klein straightened his robes and went to join the huddle of other masked figures stood around a fire, chanting words with harsh sounds that didn’t quite sound like any language Joe knew. There was a cauldron set over the fire on a metal tripod. A thick column of smoke billowed from the cauldron.<br/>
Joe looked up.<br/>
One of the missing students, Marie Ambert, was hanging from the warehouse crane, bound in chains, wearing a wedding dress and a crown of driftwood, carved to tentacles and eels.<br/>
The cadence of the chanting changed. A man in silver robes, an embroidered cape, and an elaborate long, thin, mask, approached the fire, gesturing for Marie to be lowered towards him, as he held up a curved blade.<br/>
The Priest raised his voice, in a shrill tone. “Brothers! We other this slave to the Glory! May she serve him well in his darkest Abyss. With her blood, we bind you, to his loyalty and charge!”<br/>
The chanting raised towards a crescendo.<br/>
The Priest grabbed Marie and put the blade to her throat.<br/>
“Joe!” Astrid hissed.<br/>
Joe marched into the light of the fire, his pistol raised. He took careful aim, and squeezed the trigger. A shot fired with a muted thud, sparking as it hit the blade, sending it flying from the Priest’s hand.<br/>
“That’s enough!” Joe barked. “Nobody move!”<br/>
The cultists turned to face him, fingers curling to fists.<br/>
“Please?” Joe added, gesturing with the gun.</p>
<p> <br/>
THREE<br/>
Joe leant against the side of his car, watching the uniformed police officers cuff the cultists and huddle them into the cages in the back of vans, reading their rights and processing the arrests.<br/>
A fleet of emergency vehicles filled the car park, painting the warehouse in their flashing lights.<br/>
The girl was sitting at the back of an ambulance, wrapped in a foil blanket, surrounded by a small huddle of detectives. Her shoulders were slumped, her eyes dancing wild, as she struggled through her story.<br/>
A drone of engines rumbled overhead.<br/>
Joe glanced up, as the Orca Class Transport broke through the clouds, and circled around the warehouse, choosing a space to land. Joe grabbed his satchel and coffee from his car, and walked over to meet the transport, his coat flapping in the engine wash.<br/>
The engines cycled down, and the loading ramp dropped to reveal Astrid, in her black fatigues, sky blue armoured gilet, and matching hat.<br/>
She flashed Joe a smile. “Wow, good result.”<br/>
Joe shrugged. “Yeah, turns out they are bank clerks and civil servants in fancy dress, who didn’t fancy a gun fight.” He sipped his coffee. “Do I have to do this?”<br/>
Astrid put a hand on his arm. “It’s not so bad. Once you get used to the engine noise…”<br/>
Joe held up a hand. “You know I’m a jinx. You really want me aboard?”<br/>
The grip on Joe’s arm tightened.<br/>
Astrid’s smile was thin and feline, her eyes cold and hard as diamond. “You want to do this with, or without, a concussion?”<br/>
Joe held up his hands in defeat, and followed her up the ramp into the transport.<br/>
*<br/>
Serena Lewis, codenamed Lieutenant Green, stepped through to the Operations Room, the vast circular room at the heart of Spectrum’s headquarters, where holographic displays swam in the air, tracking the readings from the Zero-X mission, to furthest reaches of the solar system.<br/>
Colonel Sir Robert Snow (codenamed White) sat at the central desk, surrounded by the maelstrom of images, his fingers steepled, his brow wrinkled, something sharklike about his eyes. “Green,” he said, in his clipped, austere, tones.<br/>
“Sir,” Serena said, bowing her head. “How goes it?”<br/>
Serena was a handsome woman, in a stalwart, dashing kind of a way. In her early twenties she was one of the youngest of the Spectrum officers, untested in the field, but highly respected in the headquarters, her sage advise rarely ignored. Trinidadian by birth, she had moved to America at eleven, following her mother’s work in the World Aquatic Security Patrol, and even attempted to follow in her mother’s footsteps, taking a military scholarship to see her through college, training as an Electronic Warfare Specialist, where Snow had recruited her, promising a job unlike any other.<br/>
A promise Snow had kept… and how!<br/>
“They are running the check cycles on the MEV, and will be launching in a little over an hour. Not… that I can do much from here but watch.” He checked his watch. “Or… they were…”<br/>
The Colonel watched the broadcasts, minute by minute, as they came in, but it took the signals nearly seven hours to reach Earth. For all intents and purposes, give or take typed messages and compressed data, the communication feed was a one way street.<br/>
“And the Berlin situation?” The Colonel asked, looking up at her.<br/>
“Blue is en route with… our asset.”<br/>
“Yes,” the colonel growled. “Him. And you are sure…”<br/>
“Yes Sir,” Serena confirmed. “He was right about the disappearances and their connections to the Abyss Cult. My research suggests his investigations are only scratching at the surface of a far deeper threat and¬”<br/>
“I see.” Snow swiped the files from Serena’s tablet onto his own desk. “It sounds like I best take a look.” He looked up at the main displays. “Prepare the briefing. If you don’t mind, I will stay with our chaps as long as I can.”<br/>
“Sir.” Serena snapped to attention, and stepped away, marching back out into the corridor. She stopped at the vast gallery windows, looking out over the flight decks of the headquarters, where three of the Angel Interceptors were coming in to land, the pure white jets screaming up through the clouds to meet the Headquarters.<br/>
Even after all these months, the sight of Cloudbase, Spectrum’s flying, mobile headquarters, soaring so high above the Earth that she could see the horizon bending, still made her heart flutter and her lips curl to a giddy smile.<br/>
She hoped it never stopped making her pause and look. It would be a sad day when such wonders became mundane.<br/>
The moment passed. Serena straightened her gilet, and marched briskly back to her booth on the command floor.<br/>
*<br/>
The Orca shuddered as Astrid brought them up above the clouds, to where the clear sky bled into the darkness of space. She glanced back at Joe.<br/>
He smiled back, from his passenger seat, at the back of the cabin, where he was trying to lose himself in a dog eared paperback, to not think about where they were going. If he thought about where he was headed, there was an engineer in his burbling ghosts who would squawk like an alarm bell.<br/>
“So…” Astrid said. “You know you have like… a thousand briefings to catch up on?”<br/>
“Any chance of the edited highlights?” Joe asked.<br/>
“Black, Scarlet, and Magenta, have been sent out to deep space, for… who knows what reason. Probably to keep Magenta as far from the Colonel as is possible, after the whole SPV thing…”<br/>
“SPV thing?” Joe didn’t look up from his book.<br/>
“Ah!” Astrid giggled. “Yes. Now that is something to know. Magenta was kind of foisted upon the Colonel. His uncle is something impressive in the World Assembly, and they pulled some strings to get Magenta selected. Magenta’s first task was to hide a whole batch of SPVs in strategic locations, fake trailers and collapsible barns, all of them relying on explosive bolts. Except of course he orders them with a point one charge, rather than a point zero one, and… Well, let’s just say it doesn’t exactly help us avoid attention if, every time we need a vehicle, it is released with a series of bangs like the fourth of July.”<br/>
Joe stared at her. “Really?”<br/>
“Oh yeah.” Astrid settled back in her seat. “Actually, it’s kind of awesome.” She tapped her headset. “Cloudbase One, this is Orca Two One Delta, on our approach now.”<br/>
Joe glanced out the window.<br/>
Cloudbase rose up over the horizon. Spectrum’s flying headquarters looked like an aircraft carrier from above, with the long landing strip crowned by the arching traffic-control tower, but from beneath it looked more like a fortress.<br/>
The ghosts at the back of Joe’s head started whispering their complaints.<br/>
*<br/>
The Asset was not what Serena had imagined. He was gawky, dorky, and oddly skeletal, with too much hair, and eyes that seemed far too old for his body, in a herringbone suit, stout boots, and a long, military surplus, overcoat.<br/>
Joe Lysander (a man of many surnames, and movable abode, according to his file) paced nervously about the conference room, inspecting the window seals, and the walls, clearly scanning them with his glasses.<br/>
Serena cleared her throat. “Are you a nervous flyer?”<br/>
“Not normally,” Joe said, with a pleasant enough smile.<br/>
Astrid grabbed his sleeve, and dragged him into a chair at the long table. “He’s fine. He just has bad habits.”<br/>
Serena tilted her head, and sipped at her ginger tea. “Who was it? Whispering to you?”<br/>
Astrid shot her a look.<br/>
“It’s interesting,” Serena said, brightly. “Prolonged use of the BIGRAT process left…echoes of the adopted skills and personalities, that were… engrained into the psyche, and…<br/>
“And,” Astrid said, in a pointed tone, “I am not sure if it would be as ‘interesting’ to the one who has to live with it, as it clearly seemed in whichever magazine you read.”<br/>
“Oh!” Serena squirmed in her seat. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean…”<br/>
Joe waved a dismissive hand. “It’s the astronaut.”<br/>
“The…” Serena’s eyes widened. “Which astronaut?”<br/>
“Jeff Tracy,” Joe said, amiably, rubbing at his head. “Mostly he just wakes me up in the middle of the night with worries for a wife and kids I don’t have, but… when I think too hard about this place, he just gives me a whole long lists of the way this could all end in tears.”<br/>
Serena leant forwards. “Am I allowed to ask why you needed an astronaut’s brain patterns?”<br/>
Joe shook his head. “Sorry. No.”<br/>
In the corner of her eye, Serena became aware of the sharp look Astrid was shooting her.<br/>
“Of course,” Serena said, looking away. “Sorry.”<br/>
Joe scratched at something behind his ear. A scar perhaps? “It’s really fine.”<br/>
The doors hissed open, and the Colonel marched in, his tablet held under his arm like a swagger stick.<br/>
In an instant Serena starched and straightened herself, adopting parade ground precision and a clip in her voice.<br/>
“Green,” Snow said. “If you would be so kind?”<br/>
“Sir,” Serena answered, dimming the lights and tapping open the holographic display. Several casefiles floated over the table. “These are the murdered or missing young women that the press deemed to be the work of single serial killer, the largest cluster in Berlin, but with other victims spread across Europe. Lysander deduced they were the work of a cult.” She tapped open a series of mug shots. “These are the Abyss cultists arrested at the warehouse.” She touched the pictures one by one, and webs of other casefiles spread out, in an ever growing web, a fractal pattern of connections and leads. “All of whom have been identified as people of interest in other investigations, but who always had alibis…”<br/>
Astrid frowned. “By other members of the cult, or by somebody who also supplied alibis or evidence clearing other members…” Her jaw set. “How deep does this go?”<br/>
Serena glanced at Snow. He gave her the nod, so she tapped another control. Many of the people who connected cult members flashed red. “An alarming number of the people who connect our cultists have vanished off the face of the Earth. The police are looking for them, but can find no trace. Geographically, their last known locations tend towards the coast, or colonies on the sea floor. Which could be coincidence, but it feels significant… especially given the… events Lysander was involved in just before Spectrum was founded.”<br/>
Colonel White looked around the room. “Blue, Mister Lysander, I would like you go to Marineville, and access the World Aqua¬”<br/>
He was interrupted by an alarm. An icon flashed on the holographic display.<br/>
Joe looked around. “What’s that?”<br/>
The Zero-X! Serena thought.<br/>
“Another ongoing concern,” Colonel White said, tartly. “If you will excuse me, we will continue this discussion shortly. Green, with me in the Operations Room.”<br/>
Serena snapped to attention, and followed White briskly from the room.<br/>
 <br/>
FOUR<br/>
Jeff Tracy leant through the hatch to the Modular Exploration Vehicle and looked between the occupants.<br/>
Richards was sat in the command chair, wearing a standard orange space suit, a white command stripe on his yellow helmet. Captains Scarlet and Black wore spacesuits colour coded to match their codenames, reinforced with plates of flexible armour and utility belts.<br/>
“Everybody okay?” Jeff asked.<br/>
Richards waved a hand. “All good and ready to go.”<br/>
“You sure?” Jeff looked at Richards. “It’s a tricky run. Are you sure you don’t want to delegate?”<br/>
Richards shook his head. “Not a chance, Jeff. Just you… watch my back, okay?”<br/>
“Yes, Sir!” Tracy glanced at the captains. “And good luck to you all. I hope you know what you are getting us into.”<br/>
Scarlet shook his head. “I wish we did.”<br/>
Jeff’s stomach tied in a knot, but he kept his smile in place. “So, I’ll just expect the unexpected then?”<br/>
Captain Black’s smile was grim. “If you would be so kind.”<br/>
Jeff hesitated. “Did I mention how little I like any of this?”<br/>
“Noted,” Richards said, with a sigh. “All clear Jeff!”<br/>
Tracy stepped back, and sealed the hatch. He touched his headpiece. “All clear. Orson, begin the launch on my mark…”<br/>
*<br/>
Conrad’s heart thundered in his chest, and his fingers tightened, gripping the arm of his seat through the padding of his gloves. The hatch sealed tight with a hiss, and the countdown began. The MEV’s engines whined up to power. Orson read the countdown with a slight waver in her voice.<br/>
Richards tapped at his controls. “All signs normal. Fuel lines retracted. Ready to disengage clamps, and…”<br/>
“Hey, Magenta,” Scarlet said, his voice echoing over the headset.<br/>
“Sir?” Magenta asked, from up on the command deck.<br/>
“Don’t touch anything,” Scarlet said, with a smile.<br/>
“Two…” Orson reported. “One.”<br/>
“Launch is go!” Tracy reported.<br/>
There was a clang, and a lurch as the MEV released from the nose of the Zero-X, and pitched towards the dark planetoid, a circle of purest black against the midnight blue of space, a hole in space itself.<br/>
Somewhere in the rushing of his heart, and the sudden gravity of acceleration, the dead suddenly felt very close. So close he could almost hear the gunfire, and feel the smoke.<br/>
He closed his eyes and tried to keep them at bay.<br/>
*<br/>
Jeff stood on the control deck of the Zero-X and watched the wedge shaped MEV flying into the distance. Hex and Anna sat at their stations, monitoring the camera feeds from ship, and each of the spacesuits, as well as the feeds from dozens of sensors.<br/>
Magenta stood at the back, leaning on the bulkhead, his arms folded over his chest.<br/>
The Zero-X vanished out of sight.<br/>
The moments that followed were strangely elastic. At the time, every second stretched to breaking point, and Jeff was left, with his heart in his mouth, for an eternity, but later, when he tried to remember the moment, the journey seemed to flash past in a seasick blur.<br/>
At long last the MEV slowed and levelled out, banking in a wide circle to survey the alien world. The tar black plains of the planet surface was less like a desert, and more like an ocean of fine, liquid sand, with an oily sheen, broken only by crystal islands, talons of jet, that clawed for the sky.<br/>
“It’s beautiful,” Hex whispered. “In a way.”<br/>
Magenta stepped past Jeff to address the screen. “Captains? Shall we?”<br/>
“Indeed,” Captain Black said. “Mister Richards, take us low and begin a standard search pattern, with a broad sensor sweep.”<br/>
“What are we searching for?” Richards asked, as he plotted the search pattern.<br/>
“A prospector drone,” Scarlet answered.<br/>
Hex furrowed their brow. “What’s a drone doing out here?”<br/>
“That,” Magenta said, tiredly, “is what we want to know.”<br/>
“No.” Anna stared at the Spectrum agent. “You want to know how it got out here. No way it had the power to make it all the way out here, and the odds of it hitting a target as small as Hadal, by pure chance…”<br/>
“Yeah,” Magenta said, taking a bag of candy from his pocket. “We want to know that too.”<br/>
Anna cleared her throat. “Colonel, are you seeing these readings? I can’t read more than thirty millimetres under the surface. I can’t tell what’s in that sand, but… the interference patterns are… incredible. It’s like trying to scan a black hole.”<br/>
“We can but try,” Richards assured her. “Is there anything you can do?”<br/>
Anna hurried to tap at her console. “I’m working on it sir.”<br/>
Something caught Jeff’s eye.<br/>
The sand on the surface was… moving. The MEV was too high for it to be engine wash, and there was no billowing, it was more like the ripples on a pond, radiating from a thrown stone.<br/>
Jeff tapped the display bringing up the image. “Richards! Pull back up! Something’s happening!”<br/>
“I see it!” Richards confirmed, banking sharply upwards.<br/>
A whirlwind of fine sand whisked up from the desert, blurring into a shape that undulated like a flock of starlings, and congealing, in a few short seconds to a vast city of domes, spires, and overlapping platforms, spreading out in all directions like a snowflake.<br/>
Jeff’s heart stopped, his blood froze, and his heart lodged in his craw.<br/>
“Okay,” Magenta whispered. “What the flying hellfire is… that?”<br/>
Hex prodded at their controls, their expression souring. “Scanners are going wild. I’m picking up all kinds of weird energy signatures from that… city? Is that a city?”<br/>
A lance of green light flashed from the structure and struck the MEV, holding it still, as the engines struggled and whined.<br/>
“What is it?” Scarlet demanded.<br/>
“A tractor beam?” Richards suggested. “I don’t know!”<br/>
*<br/>
A blinding green light filled the MEV.<br/>
The engines cut suddenly out, their noise fading to nothing. Conrad’s heartbeat filled his helmet, drowning out everything else, as the displays warped and distorted. A low, creeping noise, a lament played in white noise, echoed around Conrad, as the light intensified.<br/>
“What is that?” Scarlet whispered. “A scan of some kind?”<br/>
“Their form of communication?” Richards asked. “Whatever it is, there are more of them, lighting up across the structure…”<br/>
Conrad stared out at the points of light fading into being on the surface of the structure. They almost looked like… “An ambush!”<br/>
He barely whispered the words, but it made the others turn to look.<br/>
In his minds eyes, Conrad could see the same pattern, amongst the ruins of war-torn streets in the ruins of a rogue state, broken and beaten back to the dark ages, by long years of warfare. The ragged insurgents crawling out of the ruins to surround his convoy and unleash their ambush.<br/>
The thunder of his heart had become the pounding of rockets and artillery.<br/>
With a lightning bolt of clarity he lunged for the weapons controls, targeting the source of the tractor beam and the scattered lights.<br/>
“Conrad!” Scarlet snapped, in a warning. “Wait!”<br/>
Wait? In a split second they could all be dead!<br/>
“Go!” He shouted, as he pulled the trigger. “All speed! Now!”<br/>
The missiles spiralled away from the MEV, hitting the structure in a cleaving strafe, ripping it apart in a chain of explosions.<br/>
“Go!” Conrad roared.<br/>
Richards cycled the power, and sent the MEV screaming away, the Structure shattering as the explosions consumed it.<br/>
Scarlet stared at Conrad, open mouthed. “What did you do?”<br/>
“Do?” The question left Conrad cold. “I… survived.”<br/>
Dimly, distantly, somewhere beyond the screams of the Dead, Conrad was aware of the warning shouts and squawks on the radio, the panic and fear of Anna, and Tracy.<br/>
The desert rose up from the surface of the moon, and swallowed the MEV whole.<br/>
Darkness closed about the vehicle. The engines died. The screens blinked and went dark.<br/>
The lights waned away to nothing.<br/>
“No!” Richards snarled, prodding and jabbing at his controls, trying to bring them back to life. “No! No..no… please…”<br/>
The slow, creeping, deep lament filled the cabin, drowning out all other noise, even the dead.<br/>
A shaft of intense green light burst through the viewport, and slithered, serpentine, across the floor, resolving itself into a pair of green circles, that crept up Conrad’s legs.<br/>
A bitter, Antarctic cold crushed him down to his chair, and stole the breath from his lungs, stifling his screams, as it burrowed deep into his mind.<br/>
In his last moments, before the pain burned away all he was, Conrad wondered if the Dead had come to welcome him, as he joined them.<br/>
 <br/>
FIVE<br/>
Colonel White stood in the Operations Room watching the feed from the Zero-X as the MEV vanished in the wave of black sand. The dark sea swallowed the vessel, and all contact was lost, as though it blinked out of existence.<br/>
Snow stood among the holograms, his fists balled so tight his nails dug into his palms, his jaw set tight, his brow furrowed. His heart was weightless in his chest.<br/>
He was helpless.<br/>
Everything he watched was happening… seven and a half hours ago. What help could he give, offering advice or orders, based information that would be fourteen hours gone by the time anybody heard his message.<br/>
Behind him, Lieutenant Green was silent, her lips pressed together in a starched, neutral expression, but her eyes betraying the turmoil beneath the surface.<br/>
Snow brought the feed from the command deck of the Zero-X to the fore.<br/>
“Strap in!” Tracy barked, hopping into his pilot’s seat, and bringing the vessel about.<br/>
Magenta stepped over. “We can’t leave them!”<br/>
“That ocean covers the planet!” Hex said, their voice little more than a whisper, but with the power to carry. “And all of it is moving.”<br/>
Magenta looked about to say something else, but he looked again at the displays.<br/>
The sensor data, on another hologram, showed another of the structures forming, this time a snowflake city the size of Australia. Points of green light were burning bright as stars.<br/>
“Go!” Magenta barked. “Go! Go! Go!”<br/>
Tracy calmly threw the throttle forwards, and hauled on the controls, making the Zero-X dance and spin, as lance of green light flashed past. The veteran astronaut’s face remained set in a mask of granite concentration as he deftly, but calmly, made the ship dodge and weave around the blasts of energy, heading for the debris field, seeking cover.<br/>
He almost made it.<br/>
The lance of fire hit clipped the ship in the side, ripping apart one of the engine mounts.<br/>
Tracy fought to stabilise the ship as it spun wildly.<br/>
“No!” Colonel White begged, through his tight lips. “Jettison it! Come on man! Jettison it, before the fuel cells detonate!”<br/>
Fire raged on the damaged engine, as Tracy wrestled the ship back under control, and brought it onto a level heading.<br/>
The lance of fire flashed again.<br/>
The engine module released from the Zero-X, drifting into the path of the energy beam, exploding in a dazzling fireball, that masked the Zero-X’s plunge into the debris field, as it sought refuge amongst the asteroids and comet debris.<br/>
Green stepped forwards. “Sir… If the Zero-X doesn’t have it’s drive engines, and only has thrusters…”<br/>
Her words trailed off.<br/>
White’s shoulders sagged. “Thirty-seven years.” He looked at her. “For all intents and purposes, they are stranded.” He looked at her. “I know of two astronauts with the experience capable of navigating a safe path through the debris field, to launch a rescue, and unfortunately, both were aboard the Zero-X.” He drew a breath. “Contact the World Space Patrol, and request a shortlist of other astronauts. Which of the Angels have experience of Victor Class space vessels?”<br/>
Green blinked. “Sir…”<br/>
“And contact Space City. See if they can shake the mothballs of¬”<br/>
“Sir!” Lieutenant Green snapped.<br/>
White looked at her.<br/>
“Sir,” she said, quietly, “I do believe we may have… a spare Jeff Tracy at our disposal.”<br/>
*<br/>
In New York city, two figures sat patiently in a long, regal, car parked in the underground lot of a prestigious hotel.<br/>
One was Al ‘Nosey’ Parker, a hawkish and dour former criminal who was gradually shaving the rough edges from his manners, and wax over the scuffs of his accent. He sat in the front of the car, slumped over the wheel, intently watching the car with the false plates that had been delivered some hours before.<br/>
The figure in the back was a prim and austere high school aged girl, who should have been asleep in the dormitory of an expensive boarding school Up State (in a bed currently occupied by carefully positioned pillows, a wig, and an audio recorder playing breathing sounds on a loop). Penelope Creighton Ward was sitting up on the backseat, her Media-Glasses perched on her nose, as she rummaged around the dark and illicit corners of the internet, following some threads of data.<br/>
“You know, Ma’am,” Parker said, “I do not believe this is what Joe intended when he contacted me.”<br/>
“Of course not,” Penelope said. Her lips curled into a smile. “But he really should have known better.”<br/>
“I am supposed to be keeping you out of trouble.”<br/>
“Indeed,” Penelope agreed. “I’m relying on you to do just that.”<br/>
“That,” Parker said, “is not what I meant.”<br/>
“And you really should know better,” Penelope agreed.<br/>
“Ah!” Parker nodded to the sleek sports car pulling into the lot. “I believe this is the Senator.”<br/>
Penelope took a device from under her coat, and wrapped it around her throat. She tapped a control. When she spoke, it was a deep, smoky, voice that suggested a grizzled bear of a man. “Then let’s get to work.”<br/>
Senator Phillips pulled into the bay beside the car with false plates, and hurried to drag his suitcases from his sportscar to the anonymous saloon.<br/>
Parker pressed the button on the dash, and his cars headlights flashed as bright as floodlights, dazzling and blinding the senator.<br/>
Parker pulled down his ski mask, and climbed out the car, slamming Phillips into the boot of his sports car, and holding him down with a pistol to the back of the head.<br/>
“Senator,” Penelope said, in her disguised voice, keeping out of sight, “I have questions.”<br/>
“Oh God!” Phillips whimpered. “Who are you?”<br/>
“Somebody who knows your connection to the Abyss Cults.”<br/>
The senator froze. “You can’t prove anything.”<br/>
“Does it feel like an arrest warrant pressing in the back of your head?” Penelope snorted. “The cult is helping you disappear. Why?”<br/>
“I… earned my place,” Phillips said. “When the war comes, I will be safe.”<br/>
“The Abyss is going to start a war?”<br/>
“No!” Phillips sobbed on a laugh. “The war is coming, and the Abyss chooses who will be worthy of the protection of the Glory. When the fires burn themselves out, we will inherit the new world.” Phillips drew a breath. “We are loyal to something to greater than humanity, and¬”<br/>
Penelope nodded.<br/>
Parker cracked the butt of his pistol across the senator’s head, and bundled Phillips into the boot of his own car.<br/>
They would ensure that Spectrum would find the traitor, after an anonymous tip… eventually.<br/>
*<br/>
Joe shook his head, and backed away from Green.  He was holding that cat of his, like it was talisman of protection. “What? No!”<br/>
Serena followed him through the airy lounge, in Cloudbase’s accommodation decks. Her temper was fraying, but she forced to keep her voice level, and calm, perhaps too calm. “The process only works effectively on children…”<br/>
“I know!” Joe barked, darting in quick circles and barging his way out into the corridor.<br/>
Serena kept pace with him. “Adult brains are… more likely to reject the pattern rather, and it degrades too quickly…”<br/>
Joe turned suddenly on her. “All good reasons not to try it.”<br/>
“Unless!” Serena said, sharply. “Unless it’s a brain like yours, already trained to accept the pattern, and to retain it…” Serena put a hand on his chest. “Please. Nobody in the world can fly like Jeff Tracy, except perhaps… somebody who flies like Jeff Tracy.”<br/>
Joe shook his head, his heart breaking behind his eyes, his voice cracking into a stutter. “Please. You have n-n-no idea what you are asking me to. You have no idea what you are asking me to… endure.”<br/>
“But I do!” Serena caught his arm. “Believe me. I have read the files, and the papers. I understand the risks, and I believe for one exposure they can be managed…” She stepped around so he had no choice but to look her in the eye. “We aren’t adding to your chorus of ghosts. Tracy is already there. You already live with him…”<br/>
“And what if there are side effects?” Joe asked. “What if this time I start remembering crashes, or being stranded on that volcanic island, or… Worse than that. What if this time it doesn’t hold a-a-and I become a liability out there in the depths of space?”<br/>
“I know the risks,” Serena said. “I appreciate you are afraid, but… either you help us, and we risk failing, or you don’t, and others pay with their lives!”<br/>
Joe closed his eyes.<br/>
“What,” Serena whispered, “is Jeff telling you now, eh?”<br/>
Joe bowed his head. “Nothing that I don’t already know. There isn’t a choice, is there?” He groaned, his shoulders slumping. “Fine! I’ll do what I can to help. The brain patterns are on file. Access code WIN Delta six nine Andromena.” He chewed his lip. “But you are going to have to find somebody to look after Mac.”<br/>
Serena nodded, and gestured for him to pass her the cat.<br/>
They rode down to the medical bay in the elevator, where Captain Blue and Doctor Fawn were preparing the BIGRAT equipment. It had shrunk over the decades, from the vast room sized sphere, to a bed that did not look unlike an old fashioned CAT scanner.<br/>
Joe took off his glasses, and lay back on the scanner bed.<br/>
Astrid took his hand. “Hey. Are you going to be okay with this?”<br/>
He nodded, but his eyes told another story.<br/>
She let him go and stepped back.<br/>
Serena watched in fascination as the device hummed and pulsed. Joe arched and went taut, then slumped. There was a rapid pulse of blue light.<br/>
The noise faded away, and the room was still.<br/>
Serena’s heart lodged in her throat. “Did it work?”<br/>
“Well…” Joe said, with a voice that was… a touch more American, and a pinch more throaty. “I guess there’s only one way to find out.” He sat up and put his glasses on, feeling his hair and stubble. “I think I need to clean this up, or it will drive me mad halfway to Jupiter!”<br/>
 <br/>
SIX<br/>
The Zero-X drifted in the debris field.<br/>
Anna and Jeff worked their way from aft to stern, removing hatches and covers to check for damage. Anna tried not to think about the others, and tried not to look out the window, to the endless field of ice and debris hanging in the void.<br/>
Jeff glanced at her. “It’ll be okay, you know.”<br/>
“Will it?” Anna asked, quietly.<br/>
“The engines have gone, but… we have choices. We can hide in here from them, but send a signal home, for rescuers to find us. We can hunker down in cryo if we have to.” Jeff put a hand on her arm. “We will make it home, even if it takes a little time.”<br/>
“And… what if… that thing hears the signal?” Anna whispered. “Or if starts hunting us, or…”<br/>
Jeff gave her one of his fatherly smiles. “Then we will adapt, and keep moving. We don’t give up, we don’t stand down, and we don’t stop trying.”<br/>
Anna shook her head. “We already lost¬”<br/>
“I know,” Jeff said, gently. “I know… and believe me, it strikes me as hard as anybody else. I will mourn them. I will cry ugly tears, and be the person I hope my kids never have to see. But I will do that once we are all safe. Once you, Hex, and Pat are home, with your families. I will do that once I have held my boys and kissed my wife. After I have finished the house, and smoked a cigar, looking out to sea, from my own little island.” He gave her a look. “The secret is finding the thought that is your guiding light. The reason to keep going. We aim for that light, and we get through this, because everything else can, and will, wait.”<br/>
There was a chime from the communications system.<br/>
“Guys,” Hex said, over the speakers. “You really need to see this.”<br/>
“Almost everything,” Jeff corrected himself. “Come on.”<br/>
He put the hatch back in place, marched towards the command bridge.<br/>
Anna put her tools in her bag, and hurried to catch him up.<br/>
Hex and Magenta were leant over a console, watching a marker on the navigational display.<br/>
“What is that?” Anna asked. “Is that an emergency transponder?”<br/>
“It’s ours,” Hex said. “It’s the MEV, but it’s cutting in and out. I think it’s Morse Code, but… the word ‘Yellowhammer’ doesn’t make much sense…”<br/>
“Yes, it does,” Jeff said, with a laugh. “It’s Richards. Nobody else would know he renamed his yacht, let alone the original name. It has to be him.” He tapped open the scanners. “It’s them. They’re alive! It has to be!”<br/>
The scanners picked out the small vehicle powered down and adrift, running on emergency reserves, but… undamaged.<br/>
“How?” Anna asked.<br/>
Magenta grinned. “Let’s go ask.”<br/>
*<br/>
The Zero-X slowed into position behind the MEV and reached out with the magnetic clamps, latching the smaller vehicle into position, then pulling it home. The ships docked with an ominous clang that echoed through the ship.<br/>
Anna’s breath echoed inside her helmet as the airlock sealed behind her. She stepped forwards to the hatch to the MEV, and tried the controls. It was dead, with barely a flicker of power.<br/>
“Trying the manual release,” she reported.<br/>
“Understood,” Tracy said. “Go ahead.”<br/>
Anna gripped the handle, and gave it a hefty yank. The hatch hissed, as the bolts released, and it swung open.<br/>
Within was darkness. The lights on her helmet barely penetrated the gloom.<br/>
Scarlet was closest. She leant forwards, peering into his visor.<br/>
His eyes flashed open.<br/>
“Paul?” She asked. “Paul? Are you okay?”<br/>
“Fine.” His voice was distant, almost dreamy. “I’m… fine.”<br/>
Anna took his arm, and checked the readings on his suit. He was not just alive, he was fighting fit.<br/>
“I’m fine!” He insisted. “Check on the others.”<br/>
Anna stepped over to Richards. “Sir?”<br/>
He stirred, and drew a breath. “Orson! Maybe… cut it a little less fine, next time, eh?”<br/>
Anna grinned. “You want there to be a next time?”<br/>
“Good point.” Richards rose shakily to his feet, and dragged Conrad from his chair. “Upsie daisy Captain Black…”<br/>
Conrad shrugged him off and barged his way into the airlock. “Magenta! Status report.”<br/>
“Hey!” Magenta’s voice broke over the comms-net. “Good to hear your voices.”<br/>
“I’m sure it is,” Black sneered, “but we are at war, in hostile territory, in an exploration vehicle, and if I am not mistaken, we are without engines. Frankly, we are sitting ducks. The Mysterons could¬”<br/>
“The what?” Anna asked.<br/>
Scarlet lifted his helmet off. “That’s what they call themselves. The Mysterons. They are… Not like us.”<br/>
Anna nodded. “Tracy has a plan.”<br/>
Captain Black removed his own helmet. “To survive?”<br/>
Jeff cut in: “I think that perhaps the debris field makes it harder for their sensors to pick us up. If we can get deep enough, and I can piggy back a message off the prospector drones, we can send some co-ordinates to Earth, then go dark. Powered down, and in Cryo, we should just look like another bit of debris.”<br/>
Captain Black mulled on it. “Yes. A sound plan. We should get moving as soon as possible. I don’t know if they also heard Richard’s Morse Code. We have to assume this location is compromised.”<br/>
The trio hurried into the airlock.<br/>
Anna trailed behind. “Mysterons?” She muttered.<br/>
Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “Tell me about it.”<br/>
*<br/>
The crew stepped into their cryo-suspension tubes, and Jeff made his checks on Orson, and Hex, as Richards checked the Spectrum agents.<br/>
Tracy watched the sedatives guide his crewmates into their deep sleep, and the cryo-fluid slowing their body functions, reducing their vital signs down into stasis.<br/>
Richards still loomed over the agents.<br/>
“Are they okay?” Jeff asked.<br/>
Richards nodded. “I’m just… I don’t know what happened to us. I… know they caught us, and studied us, and… they let us go…”<br/>
Jeff nodded. “Perhaps it was a misunderstanding. We are as alien to them, as they are to us, maybe…”<br/>
“They think that is how we say ‘hello’ now?” Richards asked.<br/>
Jeff smiled. “Or that we are a scared little dog that slipped out the yard and started yapping at passing cars.”<br/>
“Perhaps,” Richards said, with a yawn. “You should go get us moving. I’ll run a few more scans and tests.”<br/>
Jeff considered it for a moment, then went up to the command deck.<br/>
Once he was gone, Richards stepped over to Magenta’s casket, ensured the alarms were muted, and doubled the doses of sedatives. The agent bucked and thrashed sluggishly in the soup of cryo-fluid, then went limp, floating on the current.<br/>
His vital signs flashed their warnings.<br/>
Richards tapped off the display, blanking the display, before joining Jeff on the bridge.<br/>
 <br/>
SEVEN<br/>
Joe stood in the desert, an hour or two from Space City, and stared at the rocket being loaded onto the launching sled by the trio of cranes. It looked like a missile, with a long body, a pinnace launch vessel on the nose, and a bulbous engine modules with squat wings at the back.<br/>
Astrid stood behind him. “Well?”<br/>
“She looks sound,” he said. “One of the XL Models. Seven?”<br/>
Astrid nodded. “The Pulsar.”<br/>
“It doesn’t have Cryo-pods,” he noted. “It will be a long journey out there. A long journey back.”<br/>
“Yeah.” Astrid nodded. “I brought a deck of cards.”<br/>
Joe studied the ramp the sled would carry them along, to reach take off speed, and the open end, where the sled would tumble away from them. “I should not be okay with this.”<br/>
“Probably not.” Astrid smiled. “How are the ghosts.”<br/>
“Mostly quiet, I just have the one drowning everything else out at the moment.”<br/>
She took his hands in hers. “You can do this.”<br/>
Joe straightened up. “We should get suited up, and ready for the launch. The window is going to be tight.”<br/>
Far too quickly, they were in their space suits, and sat in the surprisingly roomy cockpit at the nose of the rocket, in the pinnace launch. A large portion of the cockpit was taken up by the transparent canopies, that Joe really hoped were sturdier than they looked.<br/>
He was, vaguely, aware that was part of him that should be terrified. The cool professional calm, that was stiffening his upper lip, and setting his face like granite, was… utterly disturbing. Nevertheless, he made the final checks, and looked over to Astrid.<br/>
“Ready?”<br/>
“Hell yeah,” she confirmed. “Mind the first step, I hear it’s a¬”<br/>
The launch lights flashed.<br/>
Whatever Astrid had been about to say was lost in the roar, as the rockets on the sled ignited, and the engines shrieked to life, throwing them down the ramp so fast Joe felt like he had left his stomach behind, as they hurtled along the ramp, weightless for a split second, then crushed under the incredible g-forces, as the sky tumbled past, for the longest few minutes of his life, until, at last they blurred into the darkness of space, and the acceleration eased, the howl of the engines reducing to a constant hornet drone.<br/>
Joe released his white knuckle grip on the control yoke.<br/>
Astrid whooped. “Okay! I… am never going to get used to that!”<br/>
Joe gasped for breath. “I should not be okay with that.” He reached over and checked the programmed course. “We are on our way. Sixteen days to go.”<br/>
“Okay, so…” Astrid drummed her hands on the arms of her chair. “Tell me about yourself?”<br/>
“I can try,” Joe said, “but… sometimes other people’s memories sort of slip in.”<br/>
“As long as they pass the time, tell me those,” Astrid offered, with a giggle.<br/>
So, Joe did.<br/>
It was going to be a long sixteen days.<br/>
*<br/>
Serena stepped cautiously into the Operations Room. “Sir?”<br/>
Colonel White was watching a complex web of data. “This was just detected by a World Space Patrol listening post. It was bounced through the prospecting drones and mining platforms on the Belt. What do you think?”<br/>
Serena watched the code. “Co-Ordinates, Sir? Asking for a rescue?”<br/>
White nodded. “But not a beacon. Instructions.”<br/>
“They are afraid of drawing the aliens to them, then.” Green tapped at her tablet. “I will relay it to XL Seven.”<br/>
“I also spotted this…” White plucked away some date, revealing a jarring piece of code. “What am I looking at?”<br/>
Serena walked over to the code, and ran her fingers through the hologram. “Interesting. It’s a Zombie code.”<br/>
“A what?”<br/>
Serena tapped her lips. “During the manufacturing process, somebody added a packet of code they shouldn’t have, buried deep, where nobody would ever notice it… until it woke up, crawling out of its grave, to… offer somebody access to the control systems. It’s malware, but not spread like most viruses, this was buried deep, and was always there.”<br/>
White frowned. “When somebody woke this up, could they use it to send one of the drones out to Hadal?”<br/>
Serena nodded. “I believe so. Why?”<br/>
White stroked his chin. “Somebody who wanted us to find… whatever the Zero-X met.”<br/>
Serena’s smile froze. “Sir, the intelligence that young girl sent us said that a war was coming to Earth.”<br/>
“And,” White said, coldly, “a good way to be sure there is a war coming, is to start one. I want to know if anybody aboard the Zero-X is connected to the Abyss. Check their files. Including our own agents, Green.”<br/>
“Sir,” Serena agreed, cautiously.<br/>
*<br/>
Two weeks later, Parker escorted Penelope into the Perseus Lodge.<br/>
The private medical facility stretched around the shores of a peaceful lake. The buildings snaked between the tall and leafy trees. Many of the patients were resting on the walkways along the water’s edge, basking in the peace.<br/>
“And what is the nature of the problem?” The receptionist asked.<br/>
Penelope flushed. “I would rather not… It’s…” She tapped the frame of her thick rimmed glasses. “I…”<br/>
“M’Lady had a… traumatic experience a few years ago,” Parker said, in a taut voice, as he leant forwards onto the desk. “We worry there have been… consequences of that experience.”<br/>
“And… you are her guardian?” The receptionist enquired, his brow furrowing.<br/>
“No sir. I am an employee of her father, and his agent in this matter. You will find that he has already emailed Doctor Rider with my authority to¬”<br/>
“Ah.” The receptionist gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. Doctor Rider is… no longer seeing clients.”<br/>
“Oh?” Parker enquired. “Why?”<br/>
“I’m afraid that is not something I can talk about.”<br/>
Parker glanced at Penelope.<br/>
She gestured for him to keep the conversation going.<br/>
Parker scoffed. “You’ll excuse me, if I find that concerning and not a little suspicious? If he were on a sabbatical, you would have just said. It seems to me that the only reason you would be silent would be because of some… kind of embarrassment?”<br/>
“No!” The receptionist said, in a fluster. “Nothing like that. He just… vanished a couple of years ago. Nobody knows how, or why, and… We do not think it is right to discuss it with potential clients.”<br/>
“Vanished?” Parker scowled at the receptionist. “What do you mean vanished?” He caught the look that Penelope was giving him. “Never mind. If Rider is unavailable I will have to ask her father how he is happy to proceed. Never mind. Goodbye!”<br/>
Parker turned sharply on his heels, and escorted Penelope briskly from the building. “Did you get it?”<br/>
Penelope tapped her glasses. “Well, I didn’t think we had time to go searching, so I just downloaded everything.”<br/>
They stopped at a little diner, halfway back to the school. Parker had a coffee, and Penelope had a milkshake. She slid her tablet across the table, and gave Parker a worried look.<br/>
“We were right, that hospital, Doctor Rider was the connection between several of the cultists. It gets more interesting.” She tapped and called up a photograph. “I know this man. When I was in their hands, when they were processing me, he was… one of them.” She looked away. “He was bald then, and without the beard, but it is him.”<br/>
“Are you sure?” Parker asked.<br/>
“Yes.” Penelope glared at Parker. “He is the one who… controlled my father. Who turned him into that monster. Believe me, if you ever looked into his eyes, if you ever saw them glowing like fire, you would never forget them.” She hesitated. “And… there is something else. I believe Joe is very much in trouble. If he has joined the rescue mission for Zero-X then…”<br/>
“We don’t know that,” Parker reminded her. “They wouldn’t tell us where he has gone.”<br/>
“Where else would he be?” Penelope said, her patience fraying. “Look who else was one of his patients. A special forces officer, injured taking out a terrorist cell, and spent nine months in specialised rehabilitation… Before Spectrum recruited him as one of their new Colourful Captains.”<br/>
Parker growled. “That can’t be good!”<br/>
“We have to tell them, don’t we?”<br/>
Parker nodded.<br/>
“I was afraid you would say that,” Penelope muttered, with a sigh of resignation.<br/>
 <br/>
EIGHT<br/>
Joe’s heart ran at double speed as he guided the rocket through the debris field at the edge of the solar system. Shards of ice, dust, and rock from grains of sand to the size of icebergs, drifted around them, in an ever-moving dance.<br/>
“We are at their location,” Astrid reported, “but how far could they have drifted in the last couple of weeks?” A flash of light caught her eye, a regular pulse. “Wait… See that?”<br/>
“I see it,” Joe assured her, bringing them about. “Okay, thar she blows.”<br/>
The Zero-X looked lopsided and top heavy without its drive engines. Only one of the navigation lights was flashing. Everything else was cold and dark.<br/>
Lifeless.<br/>
Joe pushed that word out of his head and concentrated on bringing the XL alongside the spaceship, and extending the telescopic airlock out to clamp onto the Zero-X’s hatches. The clang of contact reverberated through the ship.<br/>
Astrid gave him a look, as she stepped down towards the airlock.<br/>
Joe hurried after her.<br/>
Within the Zero-X felt like a tomb. It had the cold of the grave about it. Joe tapped his glasses and scanned the internal network, shaking some of the systems back to life.<br/>
“They’re alive,” Joe reported. “Having a lie in.”<br/>
“Oh good, they napped. Let’s hope they aren’t cranky for the drive home.” Astrid ducked into the cryo-bay and tapped the console awake. “Everybody has nice strong life signs. Bringing them to the surface now.”<br/>
One by one the lights in the tubes changed as the crew were brought back awake.<br/>
Captain Black was the first to awake. He stood still and straight in the tube, as though on the parade ground, as the fluid drained away. Astrid helped him from the tank.<br/>
“Blue,” he muttered by way of a greeting.<br/>
Astrid stared at him. “What did you do, Conrad?”<br/>
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I keep asking myself the same thing.”<br/>
Another tube hissed open.<br/>
Joe helped Jeff Tracy out of his tube.<br/>
“I’m okay!” Tracy said, his voice slurred. “I just need a moment.”<br/>
“Here,” Joe said, passing him a bottle of water. “Take your time.”<br/>
“Do you have a ship?” Tracy asked.<br/>
Joe nodded. “An XL Model.”<br/>
“And coffee?” Jeff gave him a serious look. “Do you have coffee?”<br/>
*<br/>
Within half an hour Joe was stood on the bridge of the XL Seven, as Richards and Tracy ran through checks on the equipment.<br/>
Captain Scarlet joined them. “How are we looking?”<br/>
“Ready to go,” Jeff reported. “As soon as we are all aboard, we can go.”<br/>
“Good.” Scarlet gave Joe a look. “I don’t want to be stuck here, waiting for¬”<br/>
The lights in the spaceship dimmed.<br/>
An eerie, cold, silence descended on the cockpit, as green circles of light slithered over the floor and bulkhead. A low warble, as much like a breath as a musical note, resonated around them. It made the ghosts in Joe’s head scream.<br/>
This Is The Voice Of The Mysterons. The words seemed to come from everywhere at once. Joe couldn’t tell if they were in the ship, or inside his head. Now Hear This, Earthmen. You Have Struck The First Blow In A War. Return Home. Warn Your Leader That We Shall Answer This Act With Swift Retribution. Our Vengeance Will Not Be Denied.<br/>
In a heartbeat, the lights returned, and the voice was gone.<br/>
Joe tapped his earpiece. “Astrid?”<br/>
“We heard it here, too,” she reported from the Zero-X. “We are coming aboard now.”<br/>
Tracy checked his display. “I… don’t know what that was. It didn’t show on any of our scanners. They weren’t using comms channels. I… I don’t think we can answer.”<br/>
“We should leave,” Scarlet said. “Right now.”<br/>
“No objections from me,” Richards said, flicking some switches on the console, that made the cadence of the engines change. He tapped his headset. “Ladies and gentlemen, you might want to run, not walk, as we are in a hurry.”<br/>
“No,” Jeff and Joe said at the same time. “Slow and steady wins the race.”<br/>
Jeff stared at Joe.<br/>
“Jinx?” Joe offered.<br/>
Jeff gave him a look that could have split a rock.<br/>
The ghosts burbled at the back of Joe’s mind. A cold chill ran down his spine.<br/>
The airlock hissed and the rest of the crew hurried aboard. Anna and Hex both looked weary and defeated, but both managed broad grins.<br/>
“Okay!” Magenta flicked a pair of sunglasses out his pocket, and put them on. “Let’s move!”<br/>
Astrid pulled the levers by the airlock. There was a thump of release. “We are clear!”<br/>
“And…” Richards slammed the throttle forwards. “We are gone!”<br/>
*<br/>
The babbling of the ghosts got louder and louder over the next few days.<br/>
It didn’t help that there was so little space on the ship, and nowhere to be alone. The aft engine room was full of noise, but it was somewhere to be alone, to meditate and try to still the babble.<br/>
Tracy found him, and sat down next to him. “Okay, I have a whole lot of questions, but I’m going to keep this real simple. What, the Hell, are you?”<br/>
Joe sighed. “Why do you ask?”<br/>
“Because…” Jeff frowned. “You were talking kind of like me when we met, but your accent keeps getting more British, and… the way you carry your shoulders, and feet keeps changing. It started like a spacer, but it is getting sloppier every hour…”<br/>
“It’s complicated, and classified, and…”<br/>
“I had my brain patterns recorded once. WIN wouldn’t tell me what it was for, but years later I heard rumours of spies downloading brain imprint patterns to know everything they needed to maintain a cover identity. I always wondered what it would look like if somebody used my patterns, and I have to say, I don’t like it.”<br/>
“I’m not a fan either,” Joe said, massaging his head.<br/>
“Great Minds?” Jeff suggested.<br/>
Joe’s laugh was hollow and mirthless. “Something like that. Don’t worry your voice is fading back into the chorus. We only need one of you per ship.”<br/>
Jeff studied him. “It wasn’t an easy thing you did, flying out to find us. You did good. Are you okay?”<br/>
“Yeah…” Joe looked away. “I really wish the daredevil overconfidence wasn’t fading, as the part of me that was absolutely terrified is stretching out.”<br/>
“Yeah?” Jeff raised an eyebrow. “What’s that like?”<br/>
*<br/>
Colonel White sat in his circular desk, at the heart of the Operations Room.<br/>
“An incoming call,” Lieutenant Green reported. “Sir… it’s…”<br/>
White sighed. “Patch her through.”<br/>
A hologram shimmered into being. Penelope opened her mouth.<br/>
“Don’t,” White said. “No excuses, young woman. No explanations. Spectrum has invested time and resources ensuring you are safe, and your father is safe. All I ask, in return, is that you don’t go looking for trouble!”<br/>
Penelope shrugged. “Am I right?”<br/>
White nodded. “You are right. Black… was the key. He probably didn’t even know the command was buried down deep in his thoughts, but… Yes. The Hood diverted the satellite, the Hood had Black start a war.” He paused. “I am having you moved to another, safe location. Do not worry, Miss Creighton-Ward, this will all be dealt with.”<br/>
“Where?” Penelope asked.<br/>
“Black Rock, Nevada,” White said, with a sigh. “Even you can’t find any more trouble there.”<br/>
“But… Joe?” Penelope said.<br/>
“It will be handled,” White assured her.<br/>
 <br/>
NINE<br/>
Jeff stepped into the cockpit with a fresh jug of coffee and two mugs. “Change of watch.”<br/>
Richards gave him a tired smile. “You’re early.”<br/>
“Yeah well…” Jeff nodded beyond the canopy. “I wanted to get a good look at Planet Earth, and make sure it was still there.”<br/>
Richards yawned. “Nothing to report. All quiet.”<br/>
Jeff glanced down at the navigation screen. “All quiet, Aye.”<br/>
He set the mugs down and poured the coffees. They didn’t find much to say, and drank in a companionable silence. The comms panel chattered to life.<br/>
“Hey!” Richards broke into a grin. “Looks like they are welcoming us home.”<br/>
Jeff scanned the message. “No… We’re being redirected to Lunar City, and we will be under quarantine protocols when we land.” He hesitated. “And… Captain Black is to be detained.”<br/>
“Detained?” Richards echoed.<br/>
“That’s what it says,” Jeff muttered.<br/>
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Richards declared, over his headset, “I’m calling a family meeting in the fore section.” He reached for something under his chair. “You will all need to hear this.”<br/>
Jeff shrugged. “Okay, laying in a new course for¬”<br/>
“Belay that,” Richards said.<br/>
Jeff looked at him. “Now, hang on…”<br/>
“It wasn’t a suggestion Jeff,” Richards said, his tone cold.<br/>
Captains Scarlet and Black were the first into the cockpit. They were armed with their pistols. Too late Jeff realised that it was Magenta’s pistol that Richards was concealing under his seat.<br/>
As the others ventured onto the bridge, they found themselves held at gunpoint.<br/>
Magenta reached for his gun, and found an empty holster.<br/>
Captain Scarlet put his gun to Hex’s head, but stared at Astrid. “Hold your pistol by the barrel and pass it to Captain Black.”<br/>
Jeff looked around, futile anger burning in his chest, furnace hot, and full of roiling steam. His fingers curled to a fist, but he dared not make a move. Others would be gunned down before he could throw a punch. He stared at Richards. “What is this?”<br/>
Something changed in Richards’ voice and manner. His body language hardened and strengthened, his tone deepened and turned icy. “Earth wants us to divert to the moon, and detain us. That can not be allowed. We must carry the Mysterons’ message to Earth, and if it is not heard, we must carry out the first strike in retaliation for their attack on our Hives.”<br/>
“I can assure you,” Jeff said, evenly, “if you follow the new orders to Lunar City, you will be heard, and a peace can be negotiated.”<br/>
Richards gestured with his gun. “We are taking the pinnace launch. We are going to Earth, not the moon.”<br/>
“And what happens to us?” Joe asked.<br/>
Scarlet gave him a shark’s stare.<br/>
“Are you going to shoot us?” Joe demanded. “In cold blood.”<br/>
Scarlet blinked. “You will be sealed in storage hold two.”<br/>
“So…” Joe narrowed his eyes. “Something of you remains in there, at least.”<br/>
“Remains?” Richards shook his head. “Nothing of the original remains. Our kind can replicate any being or object, but first it must be destroyed.”<br/>
“Anything?” Astrid demanded.<br/>
“Earth shall pose no threat,” Captain Black said, with a smirk, “once it has been reborn.”<br/>
“Genocide,” Anna whispered. “You are describing genocide.”<br/>
Richards stared at her. “It is no less than Captain Black was ordered to do. Destroy us, our hive, before we can pose a threat.”<br/>
“No!” Hex shook their head. “He can’t have… it… no…”<br/>
“Those,” Astrid said, firmly, “were not his orders.”<br/>
“He had no doubts,” Captain Black said. “Enough talk. Put your hands behind your heads, and proceed to the hold.” He nodded for Jeff to move. “And you!”<br/>
Jeff put his hands behind his head, and followed the others, as they were ushered into the hold.<br/>
The doors closed. There was a crunch of something being smashed, and the crackle of sparks.<br/>
The control panel by the door went dark.<br/>
Astrid tapped at the controls, but shook her head.<br/>
Hex took Joe’s glasses, put them on their nose, and tapped the frame. “They shorted out the circuits. It’s melted the contacts. No way to hack that.”<br/>
Anna leant on a crate. “What do we do?”<br/>
Jeff wiped the frost from the porthole, and looked out at the stars. “They left the air running, so we aren’t going to suffocate. Things will likely get cold in here, but we can hold out until Lunar City sends a patrol vessel to find out why we didn’t respond to our new orders.”<br/>
Outside there was puff of jets from the pinnace, as the front quarter of the rocket disengaged, and flew off towards Earth on its own.<br/>
Jeff rubbed the back of his head. “Although if anybody has another suggestion, I’m all ears.”<br/>
Hex tapped at the glasses. “Maybe I can work out a way to send a message to Spectrum and warn them¬ Hey!”<br/>
Joe took his glasses back, and put them on, looking around the hold. He grabbed a box of self-cooking ration packs and pulled it off the shelf.<br/>
“We might want to ration those,” Jeff said. “We are going to need them later.”<br/>
Joe turned foil packet over in his hands. “I only need the heating element, and… are there flares in those survival packs? The kind that can be used in a vacuum?”<br/>
Astrid leant over him. “What are you thinking?”<br/>
“If we cut open the flares, and cover the hinges and bolts on the door with propellent, and I rig a detonator out of these cooking elements, we can cut our way out of the hold, and get back to the cockpit.”<br/>
Anna shook her head. “Or blow us all up, choke us to death on the smoke, or…”<br/>
“Do it,” Jeff said.<br/>
The others looked at him.<br/>
“That’s an order,” Jeff added. “Come on people, let’s get to work.”<br/>
*<br/>
It took hours, but to Astrid the time was meaningless, as she focussed only on her part of the task, carefully cutting and peeling away the outer shell of the flares, to reveal their propellent reservoirs and explosive charges.<br/>
In the corner of her eye, she was aware of Joe, removing the propellent and mixing it with a few other ingredients to make a greasy paste. He was not behaving as he had for the weeks they had spent together. He was fidgeting more, his eyes darting around a lot, and he kept tilting his head as though trying to hear somebody whispering to him.<br/>
Hex sat with him, occasionally putting a hand on his arm, and muttering something that seemed to anchor him in place. He nodded, and went back to work. Over and over again.<br/>
His… programme was fading, and the ghosts were back, but he looked a lot less comfortable with them than she had known before. Part of her wondered if this was what he was always like, and he managed to hide it when he reported in, but she doubted it. Surely, she would have heard the wavering in his voice.<br/>
Tracy chuckled in triumph as he removed the cooking element from a ration pouch.<br/>
An hour later they took cover in the furthest corner of the hold, as Tracy touched two long wires together, and activated the make-shift detonator.<br/>
Astrid screwed her eyes closed, but the flash was so bright she still saw it through her eyelids. When she blinked away the after-images, the bolts and hinges on the door were molten slurry. An acrid smoke hung in the air. The door dropped, and hit the floor with an almighty clang.<br/>
Jeff’s smile grew a shade. “Good work. Hex, Orson, signal Earth. I need a co-pilot. Are you up to it, Joe?”<br/>
Joe hesitated.<br/>
“I can co-pilot,” Astrid promised.<br/>
“Erm…” Magenta held up a hand. “Didn’t they steal our cockpit?”<br/>
“Yeah, but we have computers and an engine room,” Jeff said. “We can make it work. The landing will be tricky, but…”<br/>
“That,” Magenta squeaked, “is the bit we really don’t want to get wrong.”<br/>
“Fine!” Hex snapped. “You wait here, and the rest of us will go fetch help.”<br/>
Magenta groaned, and followed Hex out the hatch. “Maybe if we send a signal, we can get rescued before you try to land this thing…”<br/>
“Sure!” Anna said, cheerfully. “Stranger things have happened.”<br/>
“Yes!” Magenta whined. “Mostly to me!”<br/>
 <br/>
TEN<br/>
Serena took her place in the Briefing Room, joining Captains Brown and Grey on one of the curving benches. All available Spectrum Officers were attending, in person or remotely. In the chamber alone there were eight field officers, and a flight of six Angel pilots. Many more had a virtual presence in the rings of holograms.<br/>
Colonel White stood at the central podium. Few others would have known the Colonel well enough to see past his stiff upper-lipped façade, but to Serena’s eyes, the world was weighing heavily on his shoulders. “Good evening. What I am about to tell you is strictly confidential. Many of you will find it incredible, but I assure you, it is all too real, and has cost the lives of good men, including two of our own…” He summoned an image of the surface of Hadal, and the Structure building itself out of the desert. “Captains Scarlet and Black, with the Astronaut James Richards, encountered an alien life form. Captain Black launched an unsanctioned attack on them. In retaliation they were all killed. The MEV was recovered by the Zero-X, and the three men aboard appeared to be the missing men, and convinced their crewmates for some days, however… They were not.” He selected another image. This time of Magenta’s message. “They abandoned their crew, and stole the pinnace of the XL rocket they were returning in. They were last tracked re-entering on a course that would take it down somewhere in Europe, where they seemed to vanish. A few hours acter they would have touched down, we received this message across a range of frequencies…”<br/>
The holograms were all replaced by a representation of a sound wave, as a message played.<br/>
This is the voice of the Mysterons. Your declaration of war has been accepted. We will meet your violence with our own. Within seventy two hours, your Earth President Rani Li will answer for the attack upon our hive. You. Have. Been. Warned.<br/>
Colonel White looked around the gathered agents. “There you have it. This new enemy has stated their intent. I understand the World Space Patrol and World Government are preparing to negotiate a peace, to prove that Black acted without sanction, but in the mean time, our priority is to find these three intruders, who wear the guise of our friends. If you find them, do not hesitate, and do not believe they are the people we once knew. If possible, bring them in alive, but… regrettably, lethal force is sanctioned. Captains Grey and Brown will retrieve the President, and escort her to Cloudbase. Lieutenant Green will direct the rest of you on the search.”<br/>
*<br/>
Scarlet knelt with Richards and Black at the corner of the landing pad, within the World Government Centre in Geneva. There were a few soldiers lurking around, and a couple of technicians.<br/>
The Orca descended down through the clouds, right on schedule, just as predicted.<br/>
Somewhere, deep at the back of his mind, the part of Scarlet that he wore as a mask, the part of him made of the memories and personality of the man who had been reduced to atoms and dust, was screaming, begging loudly for him to stop, to understand the weight of what he was about to do.<br/>
It was an annoying mosquito buzz, in the back of his mind.<br/>
Scarlet ignored it, and took the silencer from his holster, screwing it onto the barrel of his pistol. Black had done the same. Richards was tensed, ready to move, his pistol tucked under his jacket.<br/>
Engine wash and noise billowed over the landing pad as the Orca came in for its final approach.<br/>
Scarlet and Black moved, shooting out the cameras in their first steps.<br/>
Scarlet took the left flank, gunning down three of the soldiers and two of the technicians with a ruthless efficiency, using the noise and movement to disguise his attack.<br/>
Black took the other flank, dispatching the other two soldiers and two more technicians, ducking into cover before the loading ramp was down. He put two bullets through Grey’s head, as the officer stepped down.<br/>
Scarlet darted up the ramp and grabbed Brown in a choke hold.<br/>
The kill had to be clean. They needed the uniform intact and unstained.<br/>
Part of him knotted in horror and anguish as he squeezed.<br/>
Brown’s lifeless body fell to his feet.<br/>
Richards stepped over, and crouched, stripping Captain Brown’s uniform from his body.<br/>
A few short moments later, Scarlet was following Black away from the landing pad, slipping quickly around the outside of the buildings, avoiding the patrols and camera drones, as they worked their way down to the parking structure, beneath the office building.<br/>
*<br/>
Richards moved swiftly through the World Government complex. Wearing Brown’s uniform, and flashing the ID too quickly for anybody to get too good a look at the photograph, got him past the low security sectors. He was a man about the right size, around the right build, wearing the right uniform. Most people only saw the uniform.<br/>
He approached the Presidential Suite.<br/>
Two marines stopped him at the checkpoint, and scanned his ID. They shared a look, and one muttered into his collar mic, as the other stepped forwards.<br/>
“I am Captain Brown,” Richards said, “of Spectrum. I am expected.”<br/>
“Sir,” the marine said, “we are going to need you to follow us.”<br/>
“I have to speak to the President,” Richards insisted. “You will take me to your leader.”<br/>
Richards was aware of the marines in heavy combat armour, moving to surround him, their guns raised.<br/>
He smiled.<br/>
“Very well,” he said, raising his hands. “Will you take a message?”<br/>
One of the marines stepped forwards, to Richards’ sidearm. “Hands behind your head!”<br/>
Richards felt the moment of his purpose nearing. His nerves frizzled, and there were butterflies in his stomach, as tendrils of smoke shimmered from his collar.<br/>
He closed his eyes, as his skin glowed bright red, then white, as it dissolved into a dazzling fireball, that consumed the top two thirds of the building.<br/>
*<br/>
Scarlet froze, and stood tall, as the explosion rumbled overhead, shaking the building. Around him cars blared in alarm, as smoke, dust, and debris billowed out of the stairwells and elevators, a spiderweb of cracks rippling across the bulging, sagging, ceiling.<br/>
Black nodded, and they ducked into cover, behind cars, their pistols pointed at the heavily reinforced entrance to the emergency bunker.<br/>
The doors hissed open, and four marines stepped through, their carbines ready. Two more waited in the doorway, with the President, a demure, handsome older woman, with silvering hair and owlish glasses.<br/>
Scarlet opened fire, slaying the nearest of the marines, and moving from cover, ignoring the bullets that zipped past him, as he marched forwards, in a steady, mechanical rhythm, draw a bead on a target, squeeze the trigger, keep moving forwards.<br/>
He braced against the bullets that struck his armoured gilet like sledgehammers, and ripped at his flesh. There was pain, but it did not matter.<br/>
Only the mission mattered.<br/>
Black was keeping pace with him, and took down the last two marines at point blank range.<br/>
Scarlet loomed over the President.<br/>
She refused to cower. “Paul Metcalf,” she snapped. “What have you become?”<br/>
“Paul Metcalf died, afraid, and wretched,” Scarlet growled. “You are coming with me.”<br/>
“And if I refuse?” The President enquired.<br/>
Scarlet punched her hard, square in the face. Her head snapped back, and her eyes rolled back into her skull.<br/>
Black caught her before she fell.<br/>
Scarlet walked back into the car park, and chose their escape vehicle. It was a matter of seconds to force the door and hotwire the car.<br/>
*<br/>
Serena stood, mesmerised by the horrors that were unfolding on her displays.<br/>
A large swathe of the World Government building was torn apart, as bodies, furniture, computers and other debris was scattered over the streets and plazas, as a fog of smoke and dust bloomed out, choking the alleyways and passages.<br/>
“The President?” Colonel White enquired.<br/>
“Evacuated before the explosion,” Serena said, swallowing the dry lump in her throat. “She was in the bunker, and about to be evacuated to a place of safety, but… Her security detail went silent, and were found dead. She’s… missing.” She paused and tapped open the security footage from the underground car park. “She was last seen…with them.”<br/>
Captains Scarlet and Black were all too recognisable in the footage, bundling the President into a car.<br/>
Serena’s stomach tied itself in knot, and bile filled the back of her throat, as she watched the soulless fiends, wearing the faces, the appearances, of her friends, her colleagues, committing murder and treason. She forced herself to remain professional, to keep the disgust from her voice, and the dismay from her expression. “I am searching all traffic cameras, tracking their movements, but…”<br/>
“Who is closest to intercept?” White asked.<br/>
“Nobody… well… there is one possibility, but you won’t like it…”<br/>
“Who?” White asked.<br/>
“I believe that Black and Scarlet are intending to obtain SPV number six three seven,” Serene said, softly. “I believe that Blue and Magenta could… intercept.”<br/>
“Blue and…” White stroked his chin. “I see.” He considered it a moment. “Do it. If they get her in an SPV we will have too few options for a successful mission, and… we do not know if they are capable of…”<br/>
“Exploding?” Serena asked.<br/>
“Tell Blue her orders are to stop them both quickly, by any means.”<br/>
*<br/>
Tracy woke with a start from his nightmares of gnashing mechanical jaws, and piercing yellow eyes, with a start, swatting away the fingers that lay on his shoulder.<br/>
“Sir!” Orson said, stepping back, terrified. “Cloudbase made contact.”<br/>
They were in the engine rooms, by the consoles that had been repurposed as a make-shift cockpit. Jeff had been sleeping in one of the chairs at the workbench, wrapped in a blanket from the survival kit.<br/>
He wasn’t usually one for nightmares. He was one for bold dreams of better futures. His dreams had seen him through days darker than any man should have witnessed. This mission though… This mission had infected his dreams, corrupted them, and blighted them.<br/>
It was a miracle any of them could sleep at all. Even with the toll it had taken on them. Because of the toll.<br/>
Tracy looked at her. “They are sending a rescue shuttle?”<br/>
“Not exactly,” Astrid said, from the other side of the engine room, where she leant over the computer console.<br/>
Tracy stepped over to the display. “To whom am I talking?”<br/>
“Lieutenant Green, Sir,” the serious young woman on the other end of the line stated.<br/>
“Lieutenant, why do I get the feeling you aren’t confirming we have a five star suite waiting for us in Lunar City?”<br/>
Green bowed her head. “I am afraid not, Sir. Magenta and Blue are required at Millennium City in the Alps. You are being redirected.”<br/>
“Now hang on!” Tracy folded his arms. “We lost our cockpit. This ship isn’t meant to fly without one, and sure as Hell isn’t meant to go into atmosphere like this. Things will be dicey on re-entry.”<br/>
Green stared at him. “But not impossible.<br/>
Jeff considered it a moment. “No. Not impossible. But very risky. For us, and for anybody unfortunate enough to be around us, and Millennium is a pretty densely inhabited city.” He rubbed his face. “Why would be taking those kinds of risks?”<br/>
Green ‘s hesitation suggested a careful consideration of her words. “The one that looked like Richards blew up the World Government building. The ones that look like Scarlet and Black have the President. They are headed for Millennium. I believe they are headed for a pursuit vehicle. They will obtain arms and equipment. We have to intercept them first.”<br/>
Jeff scowled. “And you want us to drop out of the sky on top of the pursuit vehicle, to see if we can beat them to it?”<br/>
“Margins will be tight,” Astrid said.<br/>
“I’m game,” Magenta groaned, sitting up from his bedroll.<br/>
Jeff sighed. “There is an incredibly good chance this will not go right.”<br/>
Astrid sighed. “We should try.”<br/>
“We have to,” Hex agreed.<br/>
“Anybody going to ask me not to?” Jeff said, raising his voice.<br/>
Anna shook her head.<br/>
They turned to look at Joe.<br/>
Joe pinched his nose. “How did the Richards Cuckoo blow up the WG building?”<br/>
Green cleared her throat. “He sort of… exploded. He didn’t have a bomb, that any of the scanners could detect. Best we can tell, he… was the bomb.”<br/>
Joe gave Astrid a weary look. “Then we have no choice. We stop them before they can do the same.”<br/>
“Agreed,” Astrid said.<br/>
“Okay.” Jeff held up his hands. “Let’s do it.”<br/>
 <br/>
ELEVEN<br/>
The ghosts in Joe’s head were screaming, all of them, at once, for a hundred different reasons.<br/>
“I know!” He cried out, exasperated, but his words were lost in the cacophony that filled the rocket ship as it plunged back into Earth’s atmosphere.<br/>
The engines were screeching out of tune, flames were boiling over the ceramic plates of the hull, the struts and supports were groaning and wailing in complaint, and an orchestra of warning sirens were wailing like banshees.<br/>
Jeff Tracy remained calm and stone-faced, as he adjusted and nursed the controls, apparently unaware of the bone jarring vibrations that pummelled the crew in their seats, the sparks that belched from the consoles, and the way the engine mounts were flapping like a sea gulls wing.<br/>
“Hang on!” Jeff shouted, above the din. “The landing is going to get pretty bumpy?”<br/>
“Pretty bumpy?” Magenta spluttered. “Where are we now?”<br/>
“Mildly bumpy?” Jeff offered. “A little juddery?”<br/>
Magenta closed his eyes, and muttered his prayers.<br/>
Astrid turned to look at Joe.<br/>
“I told you I was a jinx,” he said.<br/>
She smiled. “Well… if one of your missions ever goes to plan I’ll assume you are one of them.”<br/>
Joe matched her smile.<br/>
The curtain of flames gave way to clear azure skies. The alps were rushing up to meet them. Millennium City crowned the peaks, connecting the mountains in a sprawl of overlapping, interconnected platforms, with sail shaped spires, elegant bridges, pleasant plazas, and lush parkland.<br/>
It was hurtling up to meet them, at a dizzying speed.<br/>
Joe gripped Astrid’s hand, with white knuckles, tight enough to feel her pulse.<br/>
“It’s going to be okay!” Joe shouted. “She’s a tough old bird, and she’s holding it together. The XL series are¬”<br/>
One of the engine mounts ripped away from the hull, leaving a long wound in the side of the rocket.<br/>
“Yeah?” Astrid asked.<br/>
Joe squeezed her hand tighter.<br/>
*<br/>
Captain Scarlet sent the car screeching and careering around the narrow mountain roads, the other traffic flashing past in a blur.<br/>
The President was curled on the backseats, her hands bound behind her back.<br/>
Black craned his head, and nodded to the sky.<br/>
Scarlet followed his gaze. A ball of fire streaked across the sky, slicing a path towards the city.<br/>
*<br/>
Joe and Astrid braced themselves for impact.<br/>
The rocket bellyflopped to Earth, striking the city in one of the parks, and ploughing a deep trench through the snow, dirt, and the decorative pond, churning up the ground, and leaving a trail of flames.<br/>
It came to rest with a lurch.<br/>
For a moment Joe couldn’t hear anything over the high pitched ringing in his ears. Everything else had faded away, muffled and grey. He shook his head, and it all swam back into focus. The others were unstrapping, staggering for the loading ramp. Tracy stood at the doorway counting them out, refusing to leave, until he was sure everybody else was out.<br/>
Sirens blared in the park, as police cars bounced over the drifts of snow, racing to meet them. Magenta strutted out to one of the cars, his ID in hand.<br/>
“Spectrum!” He yelled. “We are commandeering this car. You… you stay and look after all this. We have to go.” In the few seconds of confusion, he shoved his way past them, into the car.<br/>
Astrid grinned and drew a deep breath, her eyes bright.<br/>
“You ok?” Joe asked.<br/>
Astrid nodded. “Fresh air… and space to stretch my legs!”<br/>
Joe nodded. “You know we are leaping right out of the frying pan and¬”<br/>
“I know,” Astrid said, patting his hand. “But there is always time to just… breathe.”<br/>
Joe followed her into the patrol car, climbing into the back seat. Magenta gunned the engine and sent them roaring through the city.<br/>
Blue flicked down the microphone on her cap. “Lieutenant Green, this is Blue, we are moving to Bishop Six, where we will lay in wait. Over.”<br/>
“Understood,” Lieutenant Green answered.<br/>
They pulled off the road into a side alley, that was unremarkable but for the small junction box on the wall.<br/>
Magenta wound down his window, unlocked the box, and let the scanner within examine his eye.<br/>
The blank wall at the back of the litter strewn alley opened onto a concealed garage. Within was the hulking Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle, and well stocked equipment cache. They parked, and climbed out the car. Astrid unlocked the weapons locker, and tossed Joe a pistol. She helped herself to a sub machine gun, and tossed another to Magenta.<br/>
He slapped home the magazine and cycled the bolt. “Okay guys. How do you want to play this?”<br/>
*<br/>
Scarlet slowed and pulled over at the mouth of the alley.<br/>
All looked quiet. He glanced to Black. Conrad nodded, his lips curled to a grim smile. Slowly Scarlet pulled himself out of the car, and drew his pistol, as he stepped into the alley, carefully looking for movement in the inky darkness.<br/>
The voice at the back of his head was still screaming and howling, still thrashing at its chains, trying to break free.<br/>
He almost missed the movement behind him, and spun on his toes, as a cat darted past.<br/>
Somebody was closing behind him, treading heavily, breathing too loudly.<br/>
Magenta. It was typical of the imbecile.<br/>
He twisted around, his gun drawn.<br/>
Magenta was striding out into the mouth of the alley, his machine gun held at his hip. Magenta opened fire, strafing the alley with a wide arc of bullets. They ripped across Scarlet’s armour, punching holes through his flesh and bone.<br/>
He was no longer a man, and his dark fate had rendered him indestructible.<br/>
There was only a distant, faded, suggestion of pain, and no blood. Instead, black sand clogged the holes in Scarlet’s chest. He remained on his feet, and casually lifted his pistol, and fired off three shots. Magenta cried out, and stumbled to the floor.<br/>
In the street a pair of figures, one athletic, one skeletal, were moving on the car, their guns drawn. Blue! And the Asset!<br/>
They dragged Black from the car, and threw him to the floor, pinning him down and handcuffing him.<br/>
Scarlet stepped over to Magenta. The fool was alive, barely winged, but he cowered in the corner, clutching at his side. With a smile he showed Scarlet the black sand in his wound.<br/>
Scarlet nodded, and scooped up the submachine gun, slapping in a fresh magazine.<br/>
“Oh God! No!” Magenta shrieked.<br/>
The others looked up, and ducked for cover, as Scarlet fired a burst. He darted from the alley and into the car, throwing it into reverse and stamping on the accelerator. There was a shriek of wheelspin as he sped from the scene.<br/>
In the back seat, the President whimpered.<br/>
*<br/>
Astrid growled in anger, as the car did a balletic turn, spinning about, and rushing away.<br/>
She looked at Joe. “Are you okay?”<br/>
He nodded. “Magenta?”<br/>
“I’m okay.” Magenta crouched by Captain Black, his pistol drawn. “Scarlet missed me, but… he got my gun. I’m sorry.”<br/>
Astrid gestured at Black. “You have him?”<br/>
“Yeah. I’ll call in back up and take him into custody. You… go get Scarlet. Okay?”<br/>
Astrid grabbed Joe. “Come on!”<br/>
*<br/>
Scarlet soared through the city, treating the streets as his racetrack, drifting wide around the corners, and weaving through the traffic.<br/>
A drone, like rumbling thunder and swarming locusts, caught his attention. He checked his mirrors. There was something bigger than a car, with too many wheels, and a tank-like shape was barrelling down the road, after him.<br/>
An SPV.<br/>
Desperately, Scarlet looked around. He saw the parking structure, a corkscrew tower that rose high into the sky, floor, after floor, crowned by a transmitter station. He yanked on the handbrake, and turned on a dime, cutting across the traffic and into the multi-storey.<br/>
The SPV followed, closing the gap by a few seconds.<br/>
Scarlet gunned the engine, onto the spiral ramps between floors, hauling on the wheel, his wing mirror scraping the wall with a trail of sparks.<br/>
Still the SPV drew closer.<br/>
The floors flashed by, as he raced higher and higher.<br/>
The President’s screams were muffled by her gag.<br/>
Scarlet kept driving.<br/>
And then what? The voice at the back of his head, the weak human thing, driven by honour, compassion, loyalty and hope, demanded. There is nowhere to go up there.<br/>
“Nowhere but down!” Scarlet snapped. “I will survive, she will not.”<br/>
That, the human part of his mind whispered, infuriatingly calmly, is not entirely true. You will reform, you will… reconstruct, but is that survival? You will die. You can ignore the pain, but not the fear, not the sickening lurch.<br/>
“Shut up!” Scarlet hissed.<br/>
You don’t have to, his human side purred. Let me help you. Please.<br/>
They emerged into the night, onto the top floor.<br/>
The SPV accelerated, ramming the car, and slamming it into the wall, bringing it to a sudden halt, shattering the windows.<br/>
Scarlet kicked the remnant glass away, and dragged the President with him, out onto the hood of the car. The President pulled and thrashed, trying to free herself from his grip. Scarlet held her close. “No. No! You stay with me, to the bitter end!”<br/>
“That’s far enough!” It was the Asset, Joe, climbing out of the SPV, his pistol held in both hands, watching Scarlet down the iron sights. “Let her go Paul. You have nowhere left to go.”<br/>
“Paul is gone!” Scarlet roared.<br/>
Am I?<br/>
What was that noise? That… turbine whine?<br/>
“I don’t believe that,” Joe said. “I think he’s in there, fighting for control, making it difficult for you. This is wrong. You know it’s wrong, Paul. You know all the blood that has been spilled, is wrong. You know this is¬”<br/>
“Wait!” Scarlet laughed. “Where’s the other one?”<br/>
Too late he turned and looked over the edge of the tower.<br/>
Too late he saw Captain Blue, wearing a jetpack, flying up the side of the tower.<br/>
Blue hurtled upwards, snatching Scarlet by the wrist, and hoisting him away from the President. In the same instant Joe grabbed the President, snatching her from Scarlet’s grip, pulling her into a hugging embrace, shielding her with his body.<br/>
Blue swung out, flying away from the tower, over the distant streets.<br/>
Scarlet wrestled to bring the gun about. His finger squeezed the trigger.<br/>
Blue let go.<br/>
The shot went wild, aiming for the clouds, as Scarlet tumbled, suddenly weightless, dropping through the howling wind.<br/>
He hit the snow covered pavement with a white crunch.<br/>
And then there was nothing.<br/>
*<br/>
We survive, the Mysteron thought, as the cells and atoms of its body reformed, and regenerated. I survive. The mission… remains…<br/>
“Does it now?” Paul Metcalf asked, as he lay face down in the snow.<br/>
Wait? What? That could not be. That was not… possible.<br/>
“No. Sorry.” Paul rolled over and sat up, staring at the black sand that drained from his freshly healed skin. “I’m afraid I have no idea how it happened, but… here I am.”<br/>
No! The Mysteron voice screamed. No!<br/>
Paul buried the voice down deep, down with all his nightmares and regrets, with all the things he had been forced to do, in the line of duty.<br/>
Police vehicles surrounded him, and Orca transports circled down from the sky.<br/>
Paul Metcalf raised his hands, and closed his eyes. “I’m not him. Not any more. I… don’t know how to explain it.”<br/>
He let himself be cuffed, and dragged into custody.<br/>
 <br/>
EPILOGUE<br/>
Colonel White stood at the mouth of the cell, and watched as Mister Kyrano stood over Captain Scarlet, his eyes closed, lost in deep concentration.<br/>
Kyrano was a man of elegance and grace, softly spoken, but with a startling presence, and unwavering reserve, with an air of the cosmopolitan about him. “Ah!” His eyes opened wide. “I see…”<br/>
“What,” Colonel White asked, “do you see, precisely?”<br/>
“This man is…in his mind, at least, all too human. He is the man you knew.” He pursed his lips. “He was… a mask for something else. Something terrible.”<br/>
Colonel White cleared his throat. “Your… former master?”<br/>
“No.” Kyrano frowned. “Although I feel his hand in this somewhere. No… This man was controlled for an alien presence, but… now the tables are turned. It exists, but it is trapped, locked away, a thing of noise and bluster, with no power over him.”<br/>
“Can it take control?” Paul demanded.<br/>
“Perhaps.” Kyrano stepped away. “Perhaps in time. But now? No. You should be… watchful for it. If you ever need help fighting such an entity, I have… some experience and will offer my help freely.”<br/>
Colonel White sighed. “Thank you, Mister Kyrano. You help has been invaluable.”<br/>
The visitor nodded curtly, clicked his heels, and walked away.<br/>
Colonel White leant on the door of the cell.<br/>
Paul stared at him. “Are you convinced?”<br/>
“No.” White allowed himself a rare smile. “However, I believe we are now at war, against an enemy that has proven too willing to take innocent lives. I need every edge or advantage I can find. I need every agent I can find.” He opened the cell. “You are a risk I am willing to take. Until you earn my trust, you will be watched, very closely, by somebody who does have my trust.”<br/>
“Captain Blue?” Paul guessed.<br/>
“Yes.”<br/>
“Good choice, Sir.” Paul raised an eyebrow. “She seems…”<br/>
“More than capable,” White agreed. “You will join the search for Magenta and Black. They have been missing since the attempt on the President’s life. We have a lead in Lunar City. You will investigate, and you will report. Angels will supply transport.”<br/>
Scarlet rose from his bench, and stepped out the cell. “Yes, Sir.” He saluted. “Captain Scarlet, reporting for duty, Sir.”<br/>
White dismissed him with a gesture. “Now, go and shave. This is an operational military base, not a hobo camp. We have no room for five o clock shadows here, soldier!”<br/>
Scarlet grinned.<br/>
It was good to be home.</p>
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